


Pendulum

by HeartFailure



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Awkwardness, Canon Divergence - Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, First War with Voldemort, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Horcrux Hunting, Horcruxes, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Not Epilogue Compliant, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26873608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartFailure/pseuds/HeartFailure
Summary: "Something felt so off with this whole story that Harry was way past hours in his office at the Department of Law and Enforcement.And the most surprising thing was that the man was only selling pendulums."When Harry think he is an adult now and that he won't fall for tricks that can change his whole life.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Harry Potter
Comments: 5
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

It was always the same shit.

It wasn’t that life was bad. He was Head of the Auror department now, he did pretty well on the job, and he worked hard to maintain order in Wizarding Britain. When the war was over, he thought that everything would be perfect and easy. What a naïve little shit he was. As a matter of fact, life was easier and harder at the same time. He had his dream job, but sometimes he struggled to get out of bed and start his day. Being an adult was tiring, wasn’t it? Having responsibilities regarding everyone's safety since he was eleven was also tiring. Maybe he needed to take some time off, it’d been a while since its last holiday. Maybe Hermione was right and he was just depressed. 

Harry scratched his head while reading the report from Winston and Muller. He should have listened to Ron when he told him to live off his parents' money and just spend entire days lounging in the sun with a cocktail. 

But Harry wasn't like that. No, he preferred to read for the hundredth time this report which didn't seem like much if you didn't know where to look. And when you did, you could see the problems coming your way and the big headache alongside it. 

It just seemed so harmless. Yesterday, a street vendor was inspected because he didn't have a permit to sell these objects in Knockturn alley. It was a real problem sometimes to detect which one of them was transgressing the law as there were so many in the streets around Diagon Alley. Some would assume it was a pointless activity for Aurors to go and carry out checks on them but there were no little or better crimes. Harry knew that some of the younger recruits, such as himself back in the days, thought that being an Auror was merely chasing after Dark lords but thank Merlin there were none at the moment. So street vendors it was.

It was nothing alarming at the beginning, his Aurors asked him to leave the space and be gone or else. Routine work. Except that the man started to act strangely and talked about his mission and how he needed to be here at this very date and they couldn't remove him because he had to accomplish something big. Something that would "change the course of time". 

At first, Winston and Muller tried to calm the odd man but the more they insisted that everything was under control, the more agitated he became. Apparently, he went on and on about his mission and begged for them to let him stay right there.

Until he stopped suddenly and asked them to arrest him. 

Quite odd yes. It was not that distressing, he didn't start to throw Unforgivables on passing patrons. But something felt off with this whole story and Harry was way past hours in his office at the Department of Law and Enforcement. 

And the most surprising thing was that the man was only selling pendulums. 

It'd been ages since he last saw a pendulum. Maybe it was when Trellawney was swinging it in front of his face in her tower at Hogwarts, shouting about his impedimenting death. 

Well at least she had one thing right. 

Why pendulums? They didn’t sell well in Knockturn, where people tended to prefer flashy dark items like the hand of glory. A pendulum wasn’t a dark artifact per se, they were quite common years ago or so, to strengthen rituals, or served as a focus for divination. However, with time they became obsolete and slowly, fewer people used them except to show off. Like Trellawney. He knew all that partly because of the quick research he had done since his team of Aurors gave him this report and he had this feeling that there was something behind this story. 

Not that he was in any luck with solving this hunch. 

Harry contemplated the mix of shapes and colours spread out in front of him. Some were pure garbage, he couldn't even sense a thread of magic around them. If he were to guess, he'd say they were from the muggles side of London. They were also the flashier ones, with lots of fake pearls and gems, some were painted in gold and he could see places where the metal showed.

Cheap pendulum alert ! Harry thought, gripping one and looking at the plastic blue jewels on it. He dropped this one on the pile smartly named "rubbish pendulum zone" and looked back at the box containing everything his Auros seized yesterday. 

One of the pendulums inside it seemed old and pulsing with magic. It layed around the pointy hat the man was wearing as if it wasn't for sale. Harry felt the need to touch it, _just one second_ and feel if it was cold from the gold or warm with magic.

Well Harry wasn't twelve anymore thank you very much and urges like that didn't bode well so this one will have to go with the Department of Mysteries. He just peeked at the runes carved on it, there were four of them, one of each side of the pyramidal shape. 

"Jera eihwaz kenaz gebo" whispered Harry while holding the pendulum in the air with his wand. 

The pendulum swung at the end of the thin gold necklace. It was strange to see those four runes together, maybe it was linked somehow. 

After several minutes of watching the little reverse pyramid sway, he let it drop onto his desk and sighed another time.

It was always the same shit. 

_

Finally, he did not give the pendulum to the Department of Mysteries. There was something pulling him towards this shiny little trinket and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Literally. He did not want to touch the blasted thing without a good assurance that it was not cursed. 

So he kept it in his drawer, and spent time researching everything he could on pendulums in his library, which was quite large if he said so himself, even Hermione would agree ! 

But after a week, he hadn't gotten very far, all the references he found were either foggy passages about the real potential of pendulums in "the art of Divination" or really descriptive ones on how to position them during a specific ritual. Nothing about spooky pendulums with carved runes on it. 

Even the runes did not make that much sense. It literally meant "Earth rebirth fire gift" or "cycle passage purification sacrifice" or something else altogether. 

Merlin why didn't he take Runes in third year ?

He had taken basic courses after becoming an Auror because he wanted to be able to understand wards and break them if needed. It was not nearly enough to comprehend the slight subtelities in this language. And he didn't want to ask Hermione for help because she would just nag him to give the damn thing to the Unspeakables. He knew that he should do that but having Hermione frown at him was not on his list right now. 

Figuring out on his own what in Merlin this pendulum meant was. So he went back to his book on runes and their interactions while sipping a well deserved glass of wine. Thank Merlin for small mercies. 

If this book was right, the shape of the object was as important as the runes carved into it. Still, three would have been a better choice as it was a strong magical number. Or five. Always the odd numbers. So the runes themselves had to be powerful ones and their interaction should compensate the number. 

But how ? And for what purpose ? 

Harry missed the times where he would just jump into situations whatever the consequences. He certainly spent less time secluded in his apartment surrounded by books and things were done. 

The pendulum resting on his table glinted as if winking at him and Harry just stared. And stared for another minute. 

Then grabbed the damn thing without a care. 

And everything just turned black. 

_ 

When he woke up, Harry's first thought was to curse himself for doing exactly what he shouldn't have done if he were an adult wizard with at least an ounce of intelligence. Crabbe and Goyle in first year were smarter than him ! He was the fucking Head of the Auror Department and he just took an artifact with his bare hands because he was frustrated that he couldn't solve it! 

A child. He was a bloody child. 

After standing up, he tried to assess his situation. So, he was in a cold dead end, with lots of garbage, he could hardly miss that smell, and it was dark. The pendulum was still in his hand, the bloody thing emitting a light glow now. Looking at it more closely, Harry saw that the light seeped through the runes but was already fading. The magic felt warm against his palm, not dark or vicious, so that was a good sign at least. He pocketed it and cursed himself again. He did not change at all. 

All his limbs were in place, thank Merlin, and fortunately, he had his wand in his holster, Auror habit, so he apparated to his apartment right away. Anything to be as far away from this smell !

Harry nearly jumped out of his skin when he appeared in his living room to find it populated by a couple of Muggles, if their eyes bugging out of their sockets at his arrival were any indication, eating dinner in it. The couple screamed while scurrying away from him and he just spinned on the spot to apparate to the same alley he woke up in. 

Gosh that smell.

Well, Harry thought, maybe the runes weren't just meant for teleportation. In what kind of mess did he put himself into this time ?

_ 

Harry went full Auror mode after the living room incident as he called it and, with a bit of snooping around the alley, found out rapidly that the pendulum was in fact designed for teleportation. Just not in space.

In bloody time.

So yeah, he was just trying not to freak out because he was in 1978, he wasn't even born for Merlin's sake ! His parents were alive, everyone that was dead was alive actually, and every friend he had wasn't born yet. 

And of course, because it couldn't get better, Voldemort was alive as well ! 

So congratulations Harry for fucking your life as always !

Suddenly he understood why sometimes house elves just banged their head on furniture because he wanted to do it so badly. He had no words to describe on how many levels he was stupid. 

Harry just sat on the cranky bed of his motel room in Muggle London and stared at the void of his life. He needed to think and quickly. At least his job as an Auror gave him lots of opportunity to test his adaptation skills and also the useful habit to have a security package at all times on him. 

It was the same principle as the pouch that Hermione had back in the days, just smaller. Every Auror had a ring which held an emergency package inside and it could only be opened by the magic of the ring bearer. Such a feat was created by the Unspeakables decades before he started his formation and Harry had never been so grateful for their imagination. 

With it he could survive on his own during the time he collected enough information to make a plan. A solid plan, not like the one with the pendulum. Harry was not going to freak out because he was an Auror and not only that! The chief of all Aurors! So he knew what he was doing, ok ?

He laughed nervously. If he laughed, he wasn't crying. Carding his fingers through his hair while trying to breath, Harry thought that he was always the one stepping through shitty situations like that. He even suspected that he had a desk job for that reason. 

So what did he know about 1978 ? 

He took the notepad and pen furnished by the motel and started writing. 

V alive.  
Dumbledore director.  
Minchum was Minister.

The bloke sure was fond of Dementors if Harry remembered correctly his history lessons in Auror training. Put more of them around Azkaban when it was already the creepiest place on earth.

So maybe he didn’t know that much about this time period. Except that cars were different, people in Muggle London weren’t that different. Or it was surely because he had no sense of style and just wore comfy clothes. 

Harry looked at the notepad in his hands and at the runes he doodled which were the ones on the pendulum. He knew them by heart after writing down the various combinations and meanings. What a waste of time. He grabbed the pen and crossed out his doodles with a lot more energy than necessary. 

He narrowed his eyes when his thoughts turned back to last week and the report he obsessed over. 

He should have known. 

The lad was not bonker, not in the slightest, he had a plan and he said as much. 

He needed to do something that would change the course of time.

After this realisation, Harry freaked out for a bit. He had a right to and he had no fucking clue what was the best course of action in his situation if he wanted to stop the world from exploding because of a time paradox. 

Of course the damn street vendor knew this kind of case would stir his curiosity, everyone knew that he obsessed over cases until he solved them as it was one of his famous traits since he became an Auror. Why didn't he contemplate the possibility that someone might throw a mysterious object into his hands and wait patiently for his stupidity to kick in ? 

Regaining his wits and calming his nerves, he considered his options once again.

Maybe the street vendor's plan was to count on Harry's legendary Hero complex, he imagined that he would directly go to Dumbledore, do everything to kill Voldemort right now, years before the night where he was marked, and change the future irremediably. 

Well good luck with that ! He thought, pacing in his room. He was not going to change a thing. No disrupting the time continuum if he could prevent it. Harry came to the conclusion that he should lay low for now and try to find a way back to his own time first. He gave himself one month to find a solution, it was short but he needed to move fast and busy himself or he would drown in his own thoughts. 

Harry dropped back on his bed and stared at the ceiling fan for a while, his mind drifting to his friends and family. He was always complaining he needed more time for himself, that they were so demanding, but right now he felt like shit and if only he had Hermione scowling down at him with her judgemental face… Or Ron laughing it off, slapping his shoulder and telling him he was still a reckless teenager. 

He needed to sleep, perhaps when he'd wake up, everything would be normal. 

As if. 

_

Harry shut the big volume he was reading and swirls of dust floated in the air. With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair, put his hands on his face and groaned.

He found nothing.

He was past deadline and still nothing. He had not stopped a minute since his arrival and chased after an answer that seemed to be impossible to get. Except if he were an Unspeakables and had a room full of Time turners at disposition. Harry paused for a second and imagined how things could go wrong if he broke into the Department of Mysteries to steal a Time turner. 

He could get killed first of all and that would solve the time paradox thingy for sure but it was not an option on his list. Or he could get sent to Azkaban, which was way worse when you had his life and were pretty much caviar for dementors. 

He could go to Dumbledore but there was a tiny little chance that he believed him and a big fat one that he'll just think Harry was a spy for Voldemort. Or, he could go to Dumbledore with horcruxes right ? One would suffice really, Harry was not going back to that cave full of Inferi today or anytime soon. Yet going to Dumbledore with an Horcrux would completely ruin his plan to not interfere and let the time do its thing and blablabla.

Harry groaned in frustration again and heard someone in the library shush him. He had to do something. He had waited more than a month, he had dug everything he could and while he sneezed on top of books, people were dying in Great Britain because of Voldemort. Of course, he shouldn’t interfere and perhaps him doing so would even cause his life but could he really go somewhere safe and watch the world burn another time ? 

No, of course not, because he was stupid and didn’t care. Or he cared too much. He was torn between doing the right thing and _the right thing_. 

Hermione was going to kill him.

Horcruxes hunting it was ! 

-

Now that he had a purpose that didn’t implicate unfruitful research, Harry felt better. He made a plan to retrieve the horcrux in the Gaunt shack without getting his hand blackened and to simply ask for an appointment with Dumbledore. Sometimes the simpler methods worked the best and if he knew something it was that the director would feel safe in Hogwarts. 

Harry spent several days in his motel room preparing for his trip, he drafted a nice plan with different outcomes in case he proved stupid or really unlucky. Then he took his wand and spinned on the spot to apparate. 

Arriving in front of the shack, he glanced around him to see the old road was empty. The garden at the front, if he could that extent of disarray a garden, was full of weeds and brush, the path leading to the door nowhere to be seen. He gripped his wand and started to slash through the vegetation to get access to the door. 

He felt the adrenaline pulsing through his veins as he advanced, it was a long time since he had the opportunity to conduct a mission and he now discovered how he missed it. However, before he could reach the door he felt the powerful enchantments placed around the abandoned house. That was why he had prepared beforehand. 

Harry closed his eyes and tried to feel the magic around him. He had become really good at it, and honestly being chased by Voldemort all his life helped him to handle really dark curses and magic. If he concentrated he distinguished three main wards protecting the entrance and one just there to repel people. The last one, he didn’t touch, because seriously muggles should stay as far away as possible from this creepy place. He focused on the three wards-like spells here to prevent his entrance.

After trying different counters which were unsuccessful, what a surprise, Harry just wrapped his magic around the spells in place and encompassed it in a sphere. Someone told him one day that his magic was really light and could trigger a bad reaction from dark magic. Or could even suffocate it. Well, at least he knew that being an ex-Horcrux didn’t affect his magic and it was a relief. 

The spells intertwined and struggled to escape his magic, lashing out at it, but soon enough the magic collapsed in itself, as the three curses turned on each other. Really sometimes simpler things worked better. Fancy spellwork could be fantastic when you had time, but pure raw magic was the best. 

The door swung open with a kick and Harry entered the shack prudently. It was full of dust and mold, no one having penetrated this place in ages. He sneezed loudly, and looked for the floorboards where the ring should be. Advancing slowly inside, he saw something glinting and hooray when he recognized the box which contained the Horcrux. Levitating and opening it with magic, he looked at the resurrection stone in front of him and sighed. Sometimes he forgot about the Deathly hallows and how he had three of them, because ten years later he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop on this one. 

But it was not the time, nor the place to reminisce on it. The plan was to inactivate the curse with a simple trick, transfigurate something in a living thing, let’s say a rat, and put the ring on it so that it will rot. It was not clean but it could prove effective. 

Harry replaced the ring in the box and transfigured a piece of rotten wood in a rat that he immediately stunned. Then he proceeded to put the ring onto the rat and promptly looked away when it turned black. 

Well. It worked! Better safe than dead, Harry transfigured another piece of wood and put the ring on it again. 

This time the rat stayed alive. 

_

With a Horcrux in his possession, Harry counted his money. He had his emergency package admittedly but it couldn’t last forever. Actually, that was the reason he was in Muggle London, it was way easier to duplicate Muggle money with magic than galleons. 

Earlier this morning, he went to the Leaky Cauldron, with his hood covering most of his face and sent a letter to Dumbledore asking him if they could meet because he had interesting matters to discuss with the director. That wasn’t very straightforward but with the war going on, he couldn’t write “Hey I am a time traveller, please invite me for tea, I need to reveal secrets from the future!”. 

He signed Harry Turner, firstly because he was a sucker for bad puns and secondly, it was a pretty common name. 

Now he could just relax a bit while he waited for Dumbledore’s reply. 

He didn’t have to wait long, as the morning after a school owl was tapping on his windows and looking furious. Harry opened the windows, grabbed a piece of bread and gave it to the poor owl which was drenched and ruffling its feathers. 

His heart jumped a little bit when he saw the classic green ink and handwriting, and he clenched the envelope. Breathing, he opened it and read its content. 

It looked like he had a meeting with Dumbledore to prepare.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos and comments, warm my heart everytime !  
> Sorry for the delay, I had a ton of work to do, so this chapter is shorter but I hope the next one will be there sooner :)

Before starting Auror training, Harry made a decision. He was going to make over the shit out of Grimmauld Place ! He owned the place since he was sixteen and it was a horrible but convenient place for him as the Ministry was not too far away. 

He tore the place down, starting with the furniture (including house elf heads). He hired Curse breakers specialists after a failed self-taught attempt at it (he read one book and thought he could do it alone, resulting in a humiliating experience). Then he contacted Magical architects to reorganize the space and try to have a “homey feeling with natural light and space” because this house was suffocating. 

Ginny helped him a lot and gave good advice for the decoration and just complemented his total lack of taste in everything. She knew so much about how to build a house with magic thanks to her parents always adapting the Burrows for more kids. At the beginning, she thought that maybe it’d be their home someday. 

That summer was instructive for Harry. One, he didn’t have taste and should always stick to basics. Two, he had tons of reading to do because Hermione or Ginny were not going to be by his side eternally to solve his problems. Three, Ginny was a fantastic person that he loved as a friend. Thankfully, this brilliant girl came to the same conclusion and he loved her more for that. 

At the end, the house looked so different that people thought Harry really just blew up the whole thing and just constructed another one in its stead. He had less rooms but bigger ones with big windows and nude tone walls, lots of fluffy cushions on beds and sofas and a kitchen on the ground floor ! 

The only problem was that Harry tried to look at Grimmauld Place as his home, tried everything he could to cleanse the place from its past but everywhere he went, images of the past came running back in front of its eyes. The order meetings, the hushed voices in the hall, afternoons spent cleaning curtains and wardrobes. 

Most of all, he saw Sirius. Miserable, haunted, grey eyes filled with horrors and this spark of madness lurking behind. Or joyful, with his bark-like laugh ringing in his ears, remembering a time when everything was easier, when his friends were not dead.

So when the ghosts didn’t recede, he bought a flat in London, and called it home. 

Because Sirius was dead and Harry needed to start living.   
__

He stared at the pendulum in his hands, the gold pyramid looked dull but the carved runes were as sharp as ever. He traced them with his thumb and felt the rough patches on each side. He had worn it on his skin everyday since he arrived in 1978, hoping that it would reactivate and transport him back, without any luck so far. 

He read somewhere that you could incorporate a spell in an object and give it a purpose. It was theoretical magic, still the idea was that once the task was completed, the spell was activated. In the book, they talked about cursed objects and the way they would apply their curse on anyone without distinction. What if your object contained within itself a quest that must be fulfilled to get access to the spell? This kind of spellcrafting was highly dangerous due to its complexity. Indeed, the caster needed to apply different layers of spells and to entwine them together with a goal-like spell. According to the literature, the ones who tried failed tremendously, losing their minds over their projects. 

Maybe this pendulum had a purpose and once he'd done whatever it was, the magic would take him home. The street vendor said he wanted to change the course of time… so his quest could be to kill Voldemort before he ever became this horrid snake-face ? But why meddle with time when it was such a dangerous thing to do?

Harry sighed, he did that a lot nowadays, and hid the pendulum under his t-shirt again, the cold metal on his skin a reminder of his current situation.

There was no time to feel downhearted ! He had an appointment with Dumbledore the night after in the Hog’s head and he needed to be prepared. He thought hard on what he knew about this time period again and came out with a bigger list of events. 

For starters, there were only five horcruxes at the moment : the diary, the Gaunt ring, the locket, the cup and the diadem. Now that he had one in his possession, preserving the timeline was not an option anymore. He could get another one in Hogwarts and knew that the locket was or would be soon in the cave. That left only two horcruxes to find. 

The question was should he tell Dumbledore the whole truth ? 

Dumbledore might help him get back to the future, it would be easier to explain how he knew all this and gain his trust. Or he could think that he was a lunatic trying to gather information for the other side. The thing was that Harry had forgiven the man over time but there was this part of him that could not put aside what he saw the day he died. The old man always schemed something, thinking ahead and what certainties Harry had right now that he would wholeheartedly help him ? 

He had none, because the old goat was a poor judge of character, literally hiring Voldemort under a turban, and with the Potter luck, Dumbledore will curse him to infinity and beyond. 

Guess he just had to find out.  
_

The weather was horrible and he had not packed his whole garde-robe in his security package so Harry was surviving solely on his Impervius charm to stay dry at the moment. It was November, he should have known better and bought some warmer clothes instead of staying reclused in his motel room. 

He had two days to think about what to say to Dumbledore but his story was not perfect. He looked at the angry sky and repeated it in his head. 

_Harry Turner, muggleborn so no links to the Potters, got a Horcrux for you, have a lot of information on the guy killing people like it were flies._

It should do it. It had to, or else he didn't know what to do in this time. 

He walked faster towards the Hog’s Head entrance, holding his wand in his pocket and checking around for anything suspicious. Hogsmeade looked the same, except for certain shops missing so he found his way around the village easily. 

Inside, the same strange crowd as in 2010 was present which was a comforting sight. A few patrons were sipping their drink in dark corners while he approached the bar where Alberforth was cleaning glasses with an old rag. He looked younger but held the same closed off expression, distrust written all over his face. Harry opened his mouth to speak but Abelforth beat him to it.

'Are you Harry Turner ?' he asked, looking him down his nose. 

'The one and only!' He joked, but Abelforth just stared at him. _Well, awkward as always Harry !_ "That would be me, I have an appointment.' 

It was a little bit of a shock to talk to someone he knew. Tom from the Leaky Cauldron didn't count, he barely knew the man in his own time, and Tom obviously knew almost all Wizardry Britain by now. 

Abelforth motioned to follow him upstairs and led him to a door which was ajar. He knocked and opened after the person inside said “Come in”. And in the room, sitting in a red and gold armchair like the ones in Gryffindor tower, was Albus Dumbledore. 

Harry stared at him, his wrinkly face with his eyes so blue behind the half-moon glasses, his long beard where his hand rested and his colorful robes sporting little shooting stars. It was a shock because even if he knew that he'd meet Dumbledore tonight, seeing someone long dead so alive… maybe he was not prepared for that. 

'Thank you Abelforth for bringing Mr Turner here.' 

The younger Dumbledore grumbled something and left them. That was Harry's cue to step into the room. It was rather dark, the only light source being a couple of candles on the table between the two armchairs, which gave the room a creepy atmosphere. There was a bed pushed in a corner, next to a window. Decoration and cosiness was not Abelforth's forte, and it forced Harry to turn his attention back on the other person in the room when he lacked furniture to stare at.

'Good evening Mr Dumbledore and thank you for meeting with me.'

The old man smiled but it didn't reach his eyes and Harry felt it deep down. He knew the man, Dumbledore saw him grow up, laugh and cry and struggle. He died and he saw that man there, in limbo, his head or whatever it was. His life was connected to this man, sometimes in a good way, others not but there was an indecipherable link between them. 

Except that this Dumbledore didn't care about him and did not trust him. He was living in the beginning of a new war, with enemies inside his school. It struck him so hard that he didn't understand the next words Dumbledore said and simply sat on the armchair like an automat. He thought that it would be like old times to see his professor, but right now he just felt an emptiness in his chest. 

He swallowed the lump in his throat and smiled back. He didn't have time for a mental breakdown. He could do like he always did, push things deep down and come back for it later. Or never. 

'Like I said in my letter, I think I have valuable information for you.'

Dumbledore was silently observing him and motioned for him to continue. 

'You don't know me so it's certain that you won't trust my word. Can I just assure us some privacy ?' he said while slowly reaching for his wand. After the old man agreed, Harry silently casted a muffliato around them. 'I know that You-Know-Who has a way to stay alive and I know how it works.'

There. It was done, boom! Harry counted ten seconds and nothing exploded, he didn't vanish and the space time continuum was still intact. 

On the other side of the room, Dumbledore furrowed his eyebrows.

'And would you care to explain ?' 

And after that, Harry began his tale. He started with Tom Riddle and how this child grew up to be a manipulative prick, with a lot of sociopath skills, ambition and a hecking problem with death which led to all the horcruxes. 

At the end, Harry took a moment to look into Dumbledore's eyes, protecting his mind with the basic knowledge of Occlumency he had. It was his only hope, he projected his truthness forward and tried to burrow all his life experience deep inside his mind. Really he was just thinking _I tell the truth, believe me, I am so pure_ in a loop while praying Merlin it would work. 

During his tale, Dumbledore looked more and more concerned and the wrinkles on his face deepened. 

'I know it's a lot to handle and I think you're not totally convinced right now. That's why… I brought one horcrux with me tonight.' 

Harry reached slowly inside his robes pocket and got out the pouch where he hid the ring. It was a little bit distressing that Dumbledore stayed quiet. He knew that he wouldn’t straight up call him a liar, but stop him to ask questions ? Meh, maybe. Send a stupefy his way and transport him to Hogwarts’ dungeons ? Possible. Not that he was complaining ! 

'This is a dangerous artifact, you must promise that you will not touch it', he demanded very seriously. The curse was neutralized but he would not take any chances, and he certainly was no Snape if something happened to Dumbledore's hand. Looking at the small pouch in his hands, Harry asked himself if it was a good idea. He could have tried alone, without anyone risking their lives once again.

'You have my word', Dumbledore replied with sincerity. 

He opened the pouch and slowly got out the Gaunt ring with his wand. At the sight of it, the Headmaster's eyes glazed over and he could see the memories passing through them. Pained to see this old man certainly reviving old sufferings, Harry put the ring on the table between them before speaking.

"This is the Gaunt ring, also known as the Resurrection stone. You don't want to mess with it though." 

__

After this conversation, everything went to shit, of course. As if his life would be a stroll in the park instead of a roller coaster from hell. 

When Harry pronounced the word Resurrection stone, it was like mistrust filled the room, Dumbledore stared at him for a long moment, surely ten seconds that felt like ten minutes and he did get a Stupefy straight to his face. 

Really sometimes he thought himself better prepared for these kinds of situations yet he never learned with Dumbledore. What with the beard ! And the spectacles ! It was like Harry’s Auror training collapsed and he was a teenager again, desperately waiting for his mentor approval. 

Well in the end, he wasn’t thrown into the dungeons. Harry supposed that the castle didn’t even have cells in the dungeons but you never knew. He woke up on a small bed in a white room that he recognized immediately at the secluded room from the infirmary. Checking himself up, he found that he didn’t have his wand anymore nor his pouch, just the pendulum. 

Just the bloody pendulum. 

The door was locked, and there was nothing inside this windowless room that could help him right now. 

He needed to think. Again. Merlin, he hated this timeline ! He plopped down the bed and took his head in his hands, trying to focus. 

It was possible that Dumbledore found out that he was lying. Or omitting something. After all, the old man was a skilled Legimens and Harry was a total dummy when it came to Occlumency. _Thanks Snape_. 

Nevertheless, the more Harry played the scene in his head, the more he could see the look on Dumbledore’s face when the ring was out of his pouch and he remembered another time where his headmaster nearly died just to touch this stone. This time was clearly the same, the old fool couldn’t keep his hands off this damn rock ! 

Harry hoped that the curse was destroyed and that Dumbledore wouldn’t die again because of it. If he came back in time just to kill the headmaster sooner… Of course, he understood the yearning to hold that stone and turn it in his hand and the need to see beloved _dead_ ones. Sometimes, he regreted throwing it on the ground of the Forbidden Forest that day, when the pain was too strong and the hole in his chest grew larger. 

Just as he was blowing a loud breath through his mouth to calm down, the lock clicked, the door opened and Dumbledore entered the room at least looking a little bit sheepish. 

Seconds later, the door opened again behind the wizard. Harry paused, looked through his fringe at the door which didn’t move an inch before slowly closing… He knew that vibe. He certainly knew that someone was currently watching him and thinking he was oh so smart. His heart clenched a little bit at this thought. 

‘I am sorry for my rude behavior but I had to make sure you could be trusted. You know these are trying times and people are not what we believe’, the Headmaster said, bowing his head slowly. 

Harry just stared at him wondering when the next Stupefy would hit him in his face. 

‘I think your help would be essential in our effort and if you’ll excuse an old man's paranoia, we could take our conversation in a more private place’, he said with his blue eyes twinkling in the direction where surely James Potter and/or his friends were under the Invisible cloak. 

Damn! He missed his school days when he was spying on people under that cloak with Ron and Hermione. So much fun ! 

He focused on the present, _nice one Harry_ , and gave a small smile at Dumbledore. 

‘Lead the way.’

__

As the two men walked outside the infirmary, taking care of leaving the door ajar, a whisper was heard inside. 

‘Who the hell is he ?’, said the first voice with concern.

‘I don’t know Sirius, but we are going to find out!’


End file.
